HR 1791 Passed in House

This evening, as expected, the House passed HR 1791, the Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act, by a bipartisan vote of 391 to 2. The debate lasted all of three minutes.

The bill would allow grant monies under the Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program to be used for enhancing medical preparedness, medical surge capacity, and mass prophylaxis capabilities to respond to chemical or biological incidents.

The bill will almost certainly pass in the Senate, where it will probably receive even less debate as it is considered under unanimous consent provisions.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 2-2-14

This week with both the House and Senate in session again, there will be two hearings held that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog; a hearing on the Coast Guard homeland security mission and a markup of cybersecurity legislation.

Coast Guard

On Tuesday the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on the “Future of the Homeland Security Missions of the Coast Guard.” The only witness currently scheduled will be the Commandant, Admiral Papp. MTSA issues may certainly be raised.

Cybersecurity Legislation

On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a markup hearing of the Chairman’s cybersecurity bill, HR 3696. This is the bipartisan National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2013 and it is looking increasingly like it may have a good chance of passage this year. The Committee will consider substitute language that I haven’t yet had a chance to review.

On the Floor

Not much happening in the House this week. HR 1791 is being considered today. It is an emergency response grant bill that will certainly pass with broad bipartisan support.

The Senate will be finishing up their consideration of HR 2642, the Agriculture authorization bill.

Homeland Security Mark-up Hearing Results

Yesterday the House Homeland Security Committee held their markup hearing looking at six different bills including (of potential interest here) HR 1204, HR 1791, HR 2952, and HR 3107. All six bills were ordered to be reported favorably; some with amendments (including HR 1204, HR 2952, and HR 3107).

The Committee provides a nice summary of the amendments, but none of them were significant. The closest to being a meaningful change was the amendment from Rep. Horsford (D,NV) that changed one of the subcommittee names of the new Aviation Security Advisory Committee from the “Perimeter Security Subcommittee” to the “Perimeter Security, Exit Lane Security , and Access Control Subcommittee”.

Actually ‘access control’ was already one of the topics that this subcommittee was to cover, so it only added ‘Exit Lane Security’. This topic is already a big deal in the airport security community so this just gave ‘Exit Lane Security’ a specific home.

Of course, any time a House Committee can do the markup of six bills in a single hearing, we know that there are not going to be any controversial or substantive changes made to any of the bills.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 10-27-13

Both the Senate and the House will be in town this week and the pace of hearings is getting back to normal after the fiscal fiasco has passed. There are four House hearings and one Senate hearing that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog. They include three mark-up hearings, one Coast Guard authorization hearing and one cybersecurity hearing.

Mark-up Hearings

The House Homeland Security Committee will try for a third time on Tuesday to mark-up a group of bills including HR 1204, HR 1791, HR 2952, and HR 3107. I wrote about this hearing in some detail last week on the second attempt to hold this hearing.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a mark-up hearing on Tuesday that will address four bills including HR 3300, the FEMA Reauthorization Act of 2013 that I described yesterday. No word yet on any potential amendments.

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee will have a Business Meeting today. It will either include a mark-up of some legislation, consider nominations or both; no agenda has been published.

Coast Guard Authorization

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will meet on Tuesday to look at a variety of issues that might be included in a Coast Guard authorization bill. The current ‘Summary of Subject Matter’ published by the Committee does not include mention of any security or chemical safety issues.

Cybersecurity

Wednesday will see a potentially interesting take on cybersecurity when the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protections and Security Technologies of the House Homeland Security Committee (whew, that’s a lot of words) hold a joint hearing on “Cyber Incident Response: Bridging the Gap Between Cybersecurity and Emergency Management”. No agenda or witness list is currently available.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 10-20-13

The House returns to work tomorrow while the Senate remains in their States for another week of keeping in touch with voters and contributors. The House does not currently have a real heavy hearing schedule this week and only one hearing that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog, a mark-up hearing that was originally scheduled for 10-2-13.

The House Homeland Security Committee will be meeting on Thursday to consider six different bills; four of which may be of specific interest here:

• HR 1204, The Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013;

• HR 1791, The Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act;

• HR 2952, The Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act of 2013; and

• HR 3107, The Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act.

Revised language will be introduced for three of these bills:

• HR 1204;

• HR 2952; and

• HR 3107

Among other things the revisions to HR 1204 would tend to re-emphasize that the TSA is to take the recommendations of the Advisory Committee very seriously; reporting to Congress when the TSA does not follow those recommendations. The changes in the language for HR 2952 are essentially non-substantive political changes. The same can be said of the proposed changes to HR 3107.

House Homeland Security Committee Markup Hearing – 10-2-13

The House Homeland Security Committee announced this morning that they would be holding a markup hearing on Wednesday to look at six bills, four of which might be of specific interest to readers of this blog.

Those four bills would be:

HR 1204, The Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013;

HR 1791, The Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act;

HR 2952, The Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act of 2013; and

HR 3107, The Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act.

The Committee web site indicates that there will be an amendment in the form of a substitute offered for three of the four bills listed above:

H.R. 1204, Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute [PDF];

H.R. 2952, Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute [PDF]; and

H.R. 3107, Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute [PDF]

I haven’t had a chance to do a detailed review of the substitute language, I’ll probably report on that tomorrow.

HR 1791 Introduced – Emergency Response Grants

A little over a week ago I noted that Rep. Bilirakis (R,FL) introduced HR 1791, the Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act. The bill would amend 6 USC 609 by authorizing the grant monies under the Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program to be used for enhancing medical preparedness, medical surge capacity, and mass prophylaxis capabilities to respond to chemical or biological incidents.

The new 6 USC §609(a)(11) would specifically allow for these grants to be used for “the development and maintenance of an initial pharmaceutical stockpile, including medical kits, and diagnostics sufficient to protect first responders, their families, and immediate victims from a chemical or biological event”. While these grant programs both specify that they are to be used for counterterrorism purposes, once these pharmaceutical stockpiles are in place they could clearly be used in response to an accidental chemical release in the area.

This is a ‘motherhood and apple pie’ bill that should face no specific opposition, especially since there are no additional grant funds being authorized. If it makes it to the floor of the House (and Senate) it will almost certainly pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. It is not clear at this point, however, if there is enough pressure available to move this to the floor. As always with this type of legislation, it would not be surprising to see this rolled into the FEMA or DHS authorization bills.

Bills Introduced – 4-26-13

With only the House in session yesterday there was only a single bill introduced that might be of specific interest to the chemical security and emergency response communities. That bill was

HR 1791 Latest Title: To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to codify authority under existing grant guidance authorizing use of Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program funding for enhancing medical preparedness, medical surge capacity, and mass prophylaxis capabilities. Sponsor: Rep Bilirakis, Gus M. (R,FL)

BTW: The House and Senate will be working in their Home districts next week, not Washington. Yes, keeping in touch with the voters and their supporters checkbooks is an important part of their legislative duties.